


It is a horrible day and I am a beautiful goose

by Wiccy



Category: Untitled Goose Game (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Lovecraftian Shenanigans, POV First Person, gender-neutral Goose, the secret backstory of Goose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27169802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wiccy/pseuds/Wiccy
Summary: Today Goose has a job to do. An entire list of jobs to do, in point of actual fact, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance for those jobs getting done without Goose getting caught. No pressure or anything.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17
Collections: New Year's Resolutions 2020





	It is a horrible day and I am a beautiful goose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hangingfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hangingfire/gifts).



> This story was inspired by several of your prompts all mushed together, ended up being a bit longer than I had anticipated, and represents the first time in a very long time that I have been inspired to write anything in first person. I really hope you like it!

I awaken in a bush, it’s green and familiar and for a moment I feel nothing but the instinct to stay there, safe and snug in my nest. I raise my head, blink and ruffle my feathers, adjusting my wings more comfortably against my soft, round body as I paddle the webbed feet currently hiding away within my belly feathers against the hard packed ground that hide the bushes roots. I do these things because I am a goose. As I rise to my feet and force my head up through the leafy canopy above me I have the thought that I am also not a goose. Rather, I wasn’t always a goose. I honk in confusion and dismay and waddle myself out of the bush and into the little clearing with the path to the pond. After a few more moments I know that this goose body still doesn’t fit, that my old body was something larger. Something with with a straighter form and no feathers. Something that looks more like those in the place just across the pond. For a moment I can’t seem to think of what they’re called. I’ve already forgotten my old name, I refuse to lose this too. After a struggle with my own mind the word returns; Human. 

Remembering myself gets harder each day. I’m certain that I’m losing small details each time I sleep. I wonder vaguely if I’ll finally know how to fly when I completely let go of what I used to be and stop trying to achieve the goals that came with that life. Today is not that day however, and I can’t dwell on these thoughts. Today I have a job to do. I have an entire list of jobs to do, in point of actual fact, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance for those jobs getting done without my getting caught. I also have to make certain that the townsfolk don’t catch on to the fact that I’m not just any ordinary white feathered water fowl, because if they do word will certainly get back to the creatures who put me in this predicament in the first place. This is, of course, made all the more difficult because I can’t exactly remember who they were, and trying to remember makes my entire goose head hurt. So, now we’re back to the fate of the world and all that. No pressure or anything.

My first order of business is to check in on my stash, those all important items that I have spent days upon days gathering. Items without which my mission would be a failure. I move across the clearing to the edge of the little cliff and peer over it. There, glittering in the new morning sunlight are the small horde of perfect little golden bells. I do a quick count. There are seven, all accounted for. It’s been two days since I took the last one and they always replace them on the third. Today is the day, the little church has been repaired and the next bell is being installed even as I look at the ones half buried here. After attuning to the resonance of the lay line on which the model village is built, the little bell in the little church must ring out – along with the big bell in the big church – after the offering is made at the summoning hour to awaken the keepers and open the gate. As long as there is no little bell in the little church the gate stays closed. I ruffle my feathers again as an unnaturally chill breeze summons bumps all along the goose skin beneath them. I move away from my hiding pit and begin to follow the dirt path as I contemplate my to-do list. Just because I am not human any more doesn’t mean I can’t still be organized, even if the list is only in my head now. Eventually, the path leads me to the pond, I wade in and swim across to the edge of the village proper.

Today I will begin with the Groundskeeper, not just because he’s usually the first in my path around town, but also because he is the Village's keeper of keys and has a key to all the public buildings hanging right there on his hip. Public buildings which include the foundry where the little golden bells are made. I think of all the havoc I could cause and the time I could buy myself – and the world – if I could get inside there. I need that key. I forgo stealth in favor of a full frontal assault on literally everything tucked away behind the hedgerows and brick. I will pluck up all the carrots, kick around the pumpkins, turn on all the water spouts, hide his favorite tools, fight him for the radio. My plan is to overwhelm and confuse, shock and awe, and slight of beak. Snatch and grab while he’s looking that way at some other chaos I have sown among the cabbages and then do a runner. The Groundskeeper has been extremely susceptible to these tactics in the past and so I have great hopes for them even as he watches me saunter through the gate.

I can’t remember which of these people were the cause of my transformation, but based on my observations over the past few weeks, I definitely have my suspicions. The Burly Man and his wife, who run the local pub, are absolutely at the top of my suspect list. The entrance to the temple is in their basement after all. There is no way they aren’t part of the conspiracy. Which is why I head there after procuring the Groundskeeper’s keys. Causing a ruckus there is good for my average, everyday, annoying goose cover and it has the bonus of allowing me to snoop around, keep an eye out and generally investigate for clues as to a more permanent solution to my world saving problem. Plus, stealing the cutlery and breaking the mugs is some of the only fun I can find these days, I shouldn’t deny myself the little joy of inconveniencing evil people. I’m actually considering finally hatching my elaborate plan to drop an old mop bucket on the Burly man’s head just to see what happens. I add it to my to-do list as I chase the wimpy kid in the striped shirt into the telephone box for the third time this morning. 

A honking of laughter escapes my beak as I waddle past the shop keeper, who stands there watching me with her infernal broom at the ready – I swear I will break that thing some day. I don’t need anything from her today so I simply spread my wings wide and honk at her to display my dominance and let her watch as I paddle away down the alley toward the back gardens. This is the part where stealth is important; ever since I decided to wash some socks and knickers in his ornamental fountain, there is one man who very much does not want me in his garden. So, I pull the loose slat aside, stretch my neck and body out low to the ground and squeeze through to his patio. Slowly and carefully, strategically using the bushes and waiting for the moments when he’s stuck in behind his newspaper, I make my way to the lower garden and the access point to the next garden over.

I know I could avoid this section of the neighborhood altogether and just carry on to my main objective, but since I made a troubling discovery here I cannot in good goosey conscience let it lay. You see, there are two particular neighbors along this back lane who enjoy taking in the morning on their respective sides of their fence. One is a fastidious man – the aforementioned man who took umbrage with his water feature being used for the washing – who reads the papers and takes his tea and spends far too much time tending one single flower. The other is almost his total opposite, her garden, and likely her mind, cluttered with whimsy and broken things. Unlike her very tidy neighbor, she seems to have many hobbies – including spying across the fence – but the one she does the most there in the garden is painting. It is that very hobby that alerted me to the trouble in the first place. 

I was making my normal rounds last week when I witnessed a very strange occurrence; Mr. Tidy was leaning over the fence, inviting his messy neighbor to smell that flower of his. This immediately struck me as odd because he never interacts with her unless it’s to throw something he doesn’t want over their shared fence or to logged a complaint. I watched from my clever hiding place of pretending to be a lawn ornament as she leaned in and sniffed. She hung there over the plant for a moment, her expression becoming slack and undefined. Her face remained that way, as if entranced, even after she was standing up straight again.

“Do you understand?” he asked her, a strange smile growing beneath his well-groomed mustache.

“Yes,” she replied, “I see now.”

She moved away from the fence then and to her easel where she picked up her brush and immediately began to paint over the nearly completed work that was already there – a picture of a purple and gold vase she had been working on happily for the last several days. So I’ve been keeping a closer eye on them ever since. She has never spent this much time on a single painting before, or worked in such detail and the closer it gets to completion, the more I see of it, the more disturbing it becomes.

I’m through the broken part of the fence now, the little yellow string holding it in place being no match for my superior problem solving abilities and I move to stand beside her, interested to know how far she has progressed yet repulsed with the idea that there will be more to see. I steel myself and look up at the painting. It’s dark and partially shrouded in swirly shadows of blacks, blues and purples. What can be seen of the form is shades of gray and vaguely human in shape, but it has too many limbs and too many mouths and no visible eyes. In the last twenty-four hours the outlines of at least a half dozen tentacles have been added to the head area. I shudder. Looking at it for too long fills me with a stomach churning nausea and a creeping sense of dread and so I look away to find the face of the artist. She doesn’t seem to notice anything is wrong, a slightly too wide smile affixed in place as she stares unblinkingly at the canvas, her hand moving the paint brush across it almost of its own accord. 

Right, that’s certainly quite enough of that. It’s time to take action. I move back through the fallen lattice, the mind altering flower masquerading as a rose is right there on the other side. Using my powerful beak I take hold of the little handle at the front of the pot and pull, really putting my neck into it. After a moment everything is in position and I once more cross the threshold into the land of whimsy. My next target is the silly squirrel shaped shrubbery. I attack it mercilessly until it has become quite the mess and no self respecting topiarist could leave it untended. Now it’s time to wake our artist up. I move to the large brass bell against the fence in the upper garden and position myself at it’s mechanism. I wait for just the right moment and **GONG!** The bell rings out right behind Tidy as he was taking a sip of his tea and now there is tea all down his front. More importantly, Messy is shaking her head and blinking again; the deep, sudden tone of the bell having done the job I’d hoped and woken her from the trance. 

She turns her head away from the painting and gives a little gasp as she sees the state of her beloved topiary. Without a second glance the paintbrush slides to rest on the easel and she picks up her pruning shears. She snips away. Snip, snip, snip, snip, **SNIP!** Another gasp escapes her as she realizes that she just decapitated Tidy man’s prize rose, it’s re-positioned pot having place it directly in the line of her shear blades. Task accomplished and uninterested in whatever confrontation might follow, I slip unnoticed into the next garden.

A shortcut through the house where they have thoughtfully left their backdoor wide open takes me out onto the street just around the corner from the pub. I take the short stroll, ignoring the urge to deliver some mail into the canal, and am standing in front of the pub in no time. The Burly man is standing guard at the front entrance so I’ll have to find another way in. Luckily, it looks like they’re getting a food delivery. All I have to do is hide myself in one of the boxes and be carried right inside. 

I only spend and hour or two in the pub today, as there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of goings on and only a few of the regulars are present. That doesn’t mean that I don’t cause a little havoc, of course. I break my usual supply of mugs, flood the utility sink, empty a barrel of beer all over the floor and break the dartboard again. I end my time there by enacting my plan and dropping the bucket on the burly man’s head. When it fell into place, the rim settling on his shoulders I was treated to the unplanned treat of seeing him sat in a pile of squashed tomatoes – the very tomatoes that had only just been delivered. Another wild honk of laughter tore it’s way from my beak as I departed out the back.

And now it’s time for my most important mission of the day. I hop into the water and float myself under the miniature bridge and into the model village. I don’t encounter any interference at all as I make my way through the miniaturized version of this small part of the world. You would think that after having seven other bells stolen they’d have installed some type of security, but the villagers honestly aren’t the smartest people you’ve ever met. I suppose that might be why the cultists chose it in the first place. Well, that and the gateway to the depths, but my point is still valid. There isn’t even any CCTV. I try not to think of the wider implications of that last part as I reach the little church. Some small distance ahead of me looms the real church that this small version represents. I still haven’t returned there since the night I was transformed. For now I will take my vengeance from this pale imitation. I peck away at the plaster stone work until one of the support crossbeams becomes visible and I grab hold of that between my upper and lower mandible. Then I pull and pull and tug for all my small feathered body is worth until finally the crossbeam comes free. I have only a few moments to back away from the tower before it crumbles and falls so that I am not crushed under the debris. It might only be plaster, but my body is merely that of a goose and it wouldn’t take much to do me terrible harm.

Now that the tower is down, the shiny golden bell is mine for the taking. And so I take it. As if to scream it’s displeasure at that fact to the heavens the full sized church bell chimes forth the noon hour and I quickly make my way back out of the model village and into the real one that it represents. All that is left is to get the bell back to my home in the woods on the other side of the pond. This is the part where everything becomes harrowing as the entirety of the town attempts to corner me and take back my little golden prize. The bell itself acting as betrayer and calling out to all around anytime I move to quickly. It’s a chase in relay style and I’m the fluffy baton, except in this race the last thing I want to do is change hands and if I don’t cross the finish line, everybody loses. 

The shopkeeper and her broom must have been on to me today, because she manages to snatch the bell away from me as I round the corner out of the alleyway and onto the high street. I honk at her as loudly as I can to convey my anger and moral outrage while I flap my wings at her threateningly. She does not seem impressed. I resort to hiding behind the loo paper, waiting for my moment. Her victory is brief as the bell's metal tang returns to my mouth in very short order. The Groundskeeper is still cleaning up the mess I made hours ago and searching for his lost keys so getting around him is even easier than usual. Now it’s into the pond and home free. My orange feet squish against the soft muddy bank on the other side and I glance back to see the Groundskeeper give up on the idea of wading in after me. Victorious I pass into the boundary of the trees.

A little later I drop the bell over the edge and into the collection pit, where it sounds out one final time with a dull metallic thud. We are all safe for one more day.

After having a quick meal of stolen veg I make my way back to the village and take the short route to the old village well. As life carries on in all the places I’ve been today and all the places just out of view, I honk my triumph down the well. My voice bounces down, down, down, down until it is no longer a sound that I can hear, but that doesn't matter. The honk wasn’t for me, it was a message for the Other. I want it to know that I still remember, that I’m still here, that it will never be free and that the line between it and the world is Goose.


End file.
